Recycling Program Gets High Grades For Initial Efforts

Nearly half of the 1,467 families on the test route are recycling their cans, bottles and newspapers exactly as the city asked them to do when the project started six weeks ago.

That means an average of 12 to 15 percent of the trash from those neighborhoods was diverted from the landfill each week, according to statistics from the Public Works Department.

"To start a pilot program and have this kind of response immediately, I think is just wonderful," said Recycling Coordinator Sue Hogue.

But the results are minuscule compared with the city's long-range goals. If the City Council deems the four-month test program a success, it might ask most or all of the city's 58,000 households to recycle.

The city started the recycling test in May to see how many people would participate.

The city created two different test groups. In one area near Oyster Point, 501 families are asked to separate their recyclable cans, bottles and newspapers into separate bins. In the other section in Denbigh, 966 households are asked to dump all recyclables in one container to be sorted by city workers.

During the first six weeks, 46 percent of the homes in the group that doesn't have to sort took part in the experiment, while 56 percent in the group required to sort the goods themselves participated.

"The only way I can explain it is the folks that live around the Oyster Point area were very vocal about recycling" when the city proposed building a trash incinerator nearby, Hogue said. She noted that participation was more equal among the two test groups during the two most recent collections.

Another difference: those homes with only one container are tossing non-recyclable trash, including pizza boxes and food, into the recycle bin. The city has rejected nearly 9,000 pounds of "contaminated" trash from those neighborhoods.

Hogue said there has been no problem with contamination from the homes using the three-bin approach. She surmised that the large containers look similar to the residents' regular garbage cans and that people are absent-mindedly throwing non-recyclable trash into them.

"I would hate to say that it's intentional," Hogue said. "I would tend to think people are getting mixed up." She said the level of contamination is "still what we consider acceptable. As long as people don't get too wild and crazy, we'll be OK."

A report from Public Works shows the city earned $641 by selling some of the newspapers, plastic bottles and aluminum cans to Tidewater Fibre Corp., a Chesapeake firm.